GALVANIC ELECTRICITY. 377 



many other metals, rocks, and gems are ren- 

 dered more fusible, and combine more readily 

 with each other by the addition of what has 

 been termed a flux. Clay is more fusible when 

 mixed with fluor spar, and quartz with lime, 

 than when separately exposed to the action of 

 heat. 



Whatever may be the true explanation of 

 these phenomena, it is evident that caloric is 

 essential to oxidation, solution, and to all che- 

 mical combinations, whether of gases and li- 

 quids with each other, and with solids; or of 

 solids with each other. It therefore follows, that 

 if chemical action be indispensable to the dis- 

 engagement of galvanic electricity, caloric must 

 be the primary source of all the resulting phe- 

 nomena. Passing over the long and idle con- 

 troversy between the partisans of Volta, (who 

 maintained that galvanic electricity results from 

 the contact of different bodies ; and those of 

 Fabroni, who contend that it is wholly the result 

 of chemical action,) it may be sufficient to state, 

 that the combined researches of nearly all the 

 most distinguished philosophers of modern times 

 demonstrate, that there can be no galvanic 

 action without chemical decomposition. 



For a long time it was supposed by Sir H. 

 Davy that contact was necessary to its com- 

 mencement, and that it was kept up by che- 

 mical action. But from the experiments of Wol- 

 laston, Gautheraut, Delarive, Avogadro, Parrot, 



